Facebook to acquire WhatsApp for $16 billion. Possible to have free whatsapp account later?

Company to continue to run independently, CEO to take seat on Facebook board of directors

Facebook has announced that it will buy cross-platform messaging service WhatsApp for a total of $16 billion, split between cash and stock. The deal was announced today by Facebook as a definitive agreement, with the messaging service receiving $4 billion in cash and aonther $12 billion in Facebook stock, with the option for another $3 billion in restricted stock units also available to be vested in four years. If for some reason the deal is cancelled due to regulatory issues, Facebook will pay a breakup fee of $2 billion split between cash and stock to Whatsapp.

WhatsApp, which has over 450 million monthly active users, is one of the biggest players in the messaging wars today. Facebook quotes some statistics, stating that WhatsApp is adding one million users to its service every day, with a total message volume on the network approaching that of global SMS traffic.

As was the case with Instagram, WhatsApp will continue to operate as a separate company and keep its branding in tact. Co-founder and CEO Jan Koum will remain at the company, but will also take a seat on the Facebook board of directors. In a post on its company blog, WhatsApp reiterates that nothing will change from a user perspective after the buyout, and the word "partnership" is being regularly thrown around from both companies.

Credit to AndroidCentral.com

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Milestone of My Space

Way back in 2003 MySpace began. Created by a small group of programmers who already had an Internet company, MySpace has grown by leaps and bounds. MySpace soon became one of the largest online companies. It was all due to the dream of a few people who were members of Friendster and already had everything they needed to get started and create MySpace.

What Did Friendster Have To Do With It?

When Friendster launched in 2002 some people from eUniverse signed up and immediately saw the enormous potential a site like Friendster could have. Brad Greenspan, Chris DeWolfe, Josh Berman, Toan Nguyen and Tom Anderson got together with a team of programmers and decided to create their own site using the most popular features from Friendster.

Everything They Needed

By August 2003 MySpace was launched. They already had everything they needed to create a website as big as MySpace. The finances, people, bandwidth and servers were already in place.

eUniverse employees were the first to create MySpace accounts. Then they would try to see who could get the most people to sign up with them. Using eUniverse's already created company they were able to sign people up very quickly.

The Domain Name

The domain name MySpace.com was originally used as a data storage site, until MySpace was created. It was owned by YourZ.com and made the transition to MySpace in 2004.

Chris DeWolfe wanted to charge people to become members of MySpace, but Brad Greenspan knew that in order to create a successful online community, it had to be free.

Who Owns MySpace?

Some employees of MySpace were able to acquire equity in the company. Soon after that MySpace was bought out by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp in July 2005. The company's name was then changed to Intermix Media. News Corp is owned by Fox Broadcasting.

Later, in 2006, Fox launched a UK version of MySpace. This was a successful attempt at adding the UK music scene to MySpace. Later they also released MySpace in China. They're working on adding MySpace to other countries too.

Widgets and Channels

Google is signed on as MySpace's search provider and advertiser. Slide.com, RockYou! and YouTube also help MySpace add functionality for it's users. Many other websites on the Net create templates and other accessories that MySpace users can use to design their MySpace profiles.

MySpace has also added many different channels and widgets to their site. There are things on MySpace such as MySpace IM, MySpace Music, MySpace Music, MySpaceTV, MySpace Mobile, MySpace News, MySpace Classifieds, MySpace Karaoke, and more.

Where Are They Now?

Currently MySpace lives in California. They're in the same building as their owner, Fox Interactive Media (which is owned by News Corp). MySpace only has about 300 people on staff. They gain over 200,000 new users every day and have well over 100 million users worldwide.

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Do you know 2 Facebook Competitors are Russian Social Network

V Kontakte - 190 million users 

Mark Zuckerberg took a tour of Russia last October, meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, but the Facebook founder and CEO has a tough road ahead of him when it comes to establishing a foothold in that country. Unabashed Facebook clone V Kontakte (know these days as "VK") is not only the dominant social network in the Russian territories, it's also the second-most visited website in that part of the world (mostly by men, 35 and younger). And since VK looks and operates a lot like Facebook, with profiles, messages, photo sharing and even a "Like" button, users have little reason to migrate.

Odnoklassniki - 45 million usersVK isn't the only competition Facebook faces in the Russian territories. Odnoklassniki ( "Classmates" in Russian), is also among the top five social networks. Designed to reunite school chums and old friends, Odnoklassniki gets its traffic mostly from 25- to 34-year-olds with kids and graduate degrees. It's also is the 7th most-visited website in Russian, 60th worldwide, according to Alexa, and a two-time winner of the Runet Prize, a mass-media award from the Russian government. Odnoklassniki's focus is largely on sharing photographs, and allows users to interact by rating those photos.

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